A Suitable Boy

  Pran walked towards the low wall that separated the Subzipore Club lawn from the sands and the river. He looked over it at the brown water and the few slow boats plying silently along. He was thinking that soon, like his father, he would be a father too, and he was doubtful that he would make a good one. I’ll be too worried for my child’s own good, he thought. But in a while he reflected that Kedarnath’s perpetual air of anxiety had not had a damaging effect on Bhaskar. And, he reflected, thinking with a smile of Maan, one can be too carefree as well. Since he was feeling a little out of breath, he leaned against the wall and watched the others from a few yards away.

  Mrs Rupa Mehra had started when she heard Dr Durrani’s name. She could hardly believe that her father had known him so well as to invite him for bridge. After all, it had been Dr Kishen Chand Seth to whom she had gone for advice in extremis, and who had told her to get Lata out of Brahmpur as soon as possible in the face of the Durrani threat. Had he deliberately not told her of the acquaintance? Or was it of very recent standing?

  Dr Durrani was sitting next to her now, leaning forward slightly in his cane chair, and she was compelled by both politeness and curiosity to swallow her astonishment and talk to him. In response to a question from her, he mentioned that he had two sons.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, ‘one of them rescued Bhaskar at the Pul Mela. What a terrible business. How brave of him. Do have another chip.’

  ‘Yes. Kabir. I fear, though, that the, er, acuity of his, um, um, insight—’

  ‘Whose? Kabir’s?’

  Dr Durrani looked startled. ‘No, er, Bhaskar’s.’

  ‘Has suffered?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra anxiously.

  ‘Er, quite.’

  There was a silence; then Mrs Rupa Mehra asked, ‘And where is he now?’

  ‘In bed?’ asked Dr Durrani, presenting a question in lieu of a reply.

  ‘Isn’t it rather early for him to go to bed?’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, puzzled.

  ‘As I, er, understand, his mother and er, grandmother, are quite strict. They tuck him up at, er, seven or so these days. Doctor’s orders.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘We have been talking at cross purposes. I meant, what is your son Kabir doing? Was he involved in these recent student activities?’

  ‘Only after the, er, lamentable, er, injury to that boy. . . .’ He shook his head and his eyelids squeezed themselves together. ‘No, well, he has other interests. At the moment he is, er, rehearsing in a play . . . er, is something the matter? Dear Mrs Mehra?’

  Mrs Rupa Mehra had nearly swallowed some nimbu pani the wrong way.

  In order to cover her embarrassment, Dr Durrani tried to pretend that nothing was amiss. He kept on talking—hesitantly, of course—about this and that. When Mrs Rupa Mehra had partially recovered from the shock, she found him discussing the Pergolesi Lemma in a courtly and sympathetic manner.

  ‘It was my paper on that, er, Lemma which my, um, wife nearly destroyed,’ he was saying.

  ‘Oh, why?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra, seizing upon the first two sensible syllables on hand in order to show that she had been following him.

  ‘Ah,’ said Professor Durrani. ‘Because my wife is, er, mad.’

  ‘Mad?’ whispered Mrs Rupa Mehra.

  ‘Yes, er, quite mad. It seems that the film is, er, about to, er, er, commence. Shall we go in?’ asked Dr Durrani.

  12.27

  They entered the dance hall of the club, where, in the cold or rainy seasons, the weekly films were screened. It was much pleasanter in the open air, for the hall was inevitably crowded; but these days there was the risk of a sudden evening shower.

  City Lights began, and laughter resounded all around. For Mrs Rupa Mehra, however, this was the laughter of mockery. Too clearly now she saw the deeply laid plot, the scheme whereby Lata, with Malati’s connivance, had contrived to act in the same play as Kabir. Lata had not mentioned him once since their return to Brahmpur. When his involvement in the Bhaskar episode had come up in conversation, she had pointedly ignored it. She could well afford to do so, thought Mrs Rupa Mehra indignantly, because she could get all the facts from the protagonist himself in their tête-à-têtes.

  That Lata should have acted so furtively with her mother, her mother who loved her and had sacrificed every comfort for the education and happiness of her children, wounded Mrs Rupa Mehra deeply. So this was her reward for being tolerant and understanding. This was what happened if you were a widow, and all alone in the world, with no one to help you control your children for their own good. Her nose had reddened in the darkened hall; and when she thought of her late husband, she started sobbing.

  ‘My wife is, er, mad.’ The words started echoing in her head. Who had spoken them? Dr Durrani? A voice in the film? Her own husband Raghubir? Not content with being Muslim, this wretched boy was half-mad as well. Poor Lata, poor, poor Lata. And Mrs Rupa Mehra, out of pity for and anger at her daughter, began to weep noisily and unashamedly.

  To her surprise, she saw that people to both left and right of her were sobbing as well. Dr Kishen Chand Seth, for instance, who was sitting next to her, was juddering with grief. When she realized what had brought this about, she glanced sharply up at the small screen. But concentration was impossible. She was not feeling well. She opened her black handbag to get out her eau de cologne.

  Someone else who was not feeling at all well was Pran. He could sense, in the crowded and enclosed atmosphere of the slightly musty hall, one of his frightening attacks coming on. He had been feeling a little breathless earlier, but this had improved when he had sat down. Now it was again becoming hard to breathe. He opened his mouth. It was difficult either to expel the stale air or to take in fresh air. He leaned forward, bent over, sat up straight. It was no good. He began to gasp for breath. His chest and neck moved, but to no effect. In a fog of desperation he heard the laughter of the audience, but he had closed his eyes, and could not see the screen.

  Pran began to wheeze, and Savita, who had half-turned to him, thinking that his paroxysm was probably one brought on by laughter, and would subside, heard the characteristic danger signal. She held his hand. But Pran had only one thought: how to get oxygen into his lungs. The more he tried, the harder it seemed to be. His efforts became more frantic. He was forced to stand up and bend over. Now other people had turned around, and were beginning to look at the source of the disturbance. Savita spoke in a low voice to the other members of the family, and they all got up to leave. Mrs Rupa Mehra’s sobbing for her daughter was converted into a new and more urgent concern for her son-in-law. But Dr Kishen Chand Seth, welded mentally as he was to the joys and woes of City Lights, was gnashing his teeth in frustration, and was only restrained from going up in smoke by a warning word from his wife.

  Somehow they got to his car, and there Pran collapsed. His struggles to breathe were painful to observe, and Mrs Rupa Mehra tried to prevent her daughter from observing them. The baby was due in two weeks, and she had advised Savita against even the mild excitement of the movie.

  Savita held Pran’s hand tightly and said to Dr Kishen Chand Seth: ‘This is a worse attack than usual, Nanaji. We should go to the hospital.’ But Pran managed to gasp out the single word: ‘Home.’ He felt that once he was there the spasm would subside of its own accord.

  They drove back to the house. Pran was put to bed. But the spasm continued. The veins in his neck and forehead stood out. His eyes, even when open, registered very little of the outside world. His chest continued to heave. His coughing, gasping, and wheezing filled the room, and there was a desperate darkness in his mind.

  It was now almost an hour since it had begun. Dr Kishen Chand Seth phoned a colleague. Then, despite her mother’s dissuasion on the grounds that she should be resting, not distressing herself like this, Savita walked carefully out of the bedroom, picked up the receiver, phoned Baitar House and asked for Imtiaz. By some miracle he was in, though in that vast house it took a little while to summon him to the phone.<
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  ‘Imtiaz Bhai,’ said Savita, ‘Pran is having one of his asthma attacks, but it is much worse than usual. Could you come over, please? . . . It’s been an hour or more. . . . Yes, I’ll remain calm—but please come over . . . please. . . . At the club during the movie. . . . No, your father’s still there, but my grandfather is with us, here at home. . . . Yes, yes, I will remain calm, but I’ll be calmer once you’re here. . . . I can’t describe it. It’s much worse than usual, and I’ve seen many of them.’

  While she was talking, the young servant, Mansoor, concerned that in her situation she should be standing, had brought a chair for her. Now she sat down, looked at the phone, and sobbed.

  After a while, having collected herself, she went back to the bedroom, where everyone was standing around, upset and agitated.

  A sound was heard at the front door. ‘I’ll see who it is,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra.

  It was Lata and Malati, back from the rehearsal of Twelfth Night.

  ‘Whenever I act or sing,’ said Malati, ‘I feel I could eat a horse.’

  ‘We’re not serving horse today,’ said Lata, as the door opened. ‘It’s one of Ma’s fast days. Where is everyone?’ she continued, noticing that, despite the car standing outside, the drawing room was empty. ‘Ma? Now what are you crying for? I didn’t mean to tease you. It was a stupid joke, anyway. . . . Is something the matter? Is anything wrong?’

  Part Thirteen

  13.1

  Maan, Firoz and Imtiaz were over very shortly. Maan tried to cheer Savita up a bit. Firoz said little. Like everyone else, he was distressed to see Pran in such a pitiable state, labouring and panting for breath.

  Imtiaz, on the other hand, was not visibly upset by his friend’s painful struggles and went about his task of diagnosis swiftly. Parvati Seth was a trained nurse and helped move Pran when necessary. Imtiaz knew that Pran was not in a position to answer questions except occasionally by nodding or shaking his head, so he addressed what questions he could about the background as well as the suddenness of this recent attack to Savita. Malati described fairly clinically the incident in the lecture room a few days earlier. Firoz had already told Imtiaz on the way to the house that Pran had been complaining of exhaustion when he had met him at the High Court a few days earlier—and, of all things, discomfort around his heart.

  Mrs Rupa Mehra sat silently in a chair, and Lata stood behind her, an arm on her shoulder. Mrs Rupa Mehra did not say anything to Lata. Concern for Pran had pushed other matters to the side.

  Savita looked sometimes at her husband, sometimes at Imtiaz’s long, fair, appraising face. There was a small mole on his cheek which drew her attention in particular, though she could not have said why. At the moment Imtiaz was feeling Pran’s liver—which seemed an unusual proceeding after an asthmatic attack.

  To Dr Kishen Chand Seth he said: ‘Status asthmaticus, of course. It should be self-limiting, but if it doesn’t go away in a little while I’ll administer some adrenaline subcutaneously. If I can, though, I’d prefer to avoid it. I wonder if you could arrange for the ECG machine to be brought in tomorrow?’

  At the word ‘ECG’ not only Dr Seth but everyone else started.

  ‘What do you need that for?’ said Dr Seth sharply. There was only one ECG machine in Brahmpur, and it was at the medical college hospital.

  ‘Well, I’d like to take a reading. I would not like Pran to be moved at all, so I wonder if you could arrange for it to be brought here. If I ask for it, they’ll just think I’m a young man with newfangled ideas who doesn’t know how to treat asthma.’

  That was exactly what Dr Kishen Chand Seth himself was thinking. Was Imtiaz implying that he, Dr Seth, had oldfangled ideas? But something in Imtiaz’s confident manner of examining the patient had impressed him. He said he would make the necessary arrangements. He knew that institutions with ECG machines guarded them like gold.

  Lucknow had a single such machine, and there were none in Banaras at the time. The medical college hospital at Brahmpur was extremely proud and possessive of its recent acquisition. But Dr Seth was a force to be reckoned with there, as elsewhere. The next day the ECG machine was brought in.

  Pran, who had stabilized after another traumatic hour of wheezing, and had then collapsed into an exhausted sleep, woke up to find Imtiaz and the machine in his bedroom.

  ‘Where’s Savita?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s resting on the sofa in the other room. Doctor’s orders. She’s fine.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Pran asked.

  ‘The ECG machine.’

  ‘It’s not very big,’ said Pran, rather unimpressed.

  ‘Nor are viruses,’ said Imtiaz with a laugh. ‘How did you sleep?’

  ‘Fine.’ Pran’s voice was clear; there was no wheezing.

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘A little weak. Really, Imtiaz, what’s the purpose of an ECG? That’s for the heart, and my problem is my lungs.’

  ‘Why don’t you leave that for me to decide. You may well be right, but there’s no harm in checking. I suspect that this time a cardiogram may help. I believe that it may not be a simple asthmatic attack.’

  Imtiaz knew that he could not lull Pran to peace in a soothing hammock of ignorance, and felt that he should take him into his confidence.

  But ‘Oh’ was all Pran said. He was still sleepy.

  After a while, Imtiaz asked him for some other details of his medical history, and added, ‘I’m going to ask you to move as little as possible.’

  ‘But my lectures—’

  ‘Out of the question,’ said Imtiaz cheerfully.

  ‘And my committees?’

  Imtiaz laughed. ‘Forget them. Firoz tells me you loathe them anyway.’

  Pran lay back on the pillows. ‘You always were a bully, Imtiaz,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it’s clear what kind of friend you are. You pop up at Holi, get me into trouble, and then only come to visit me when I’m ill.’

  Imtiaz yawned.

  ‘I suppose your excuse is that you work too hard.’

  ‘I do,’ said Imtiaz. ‘Dr Khan, despite his youth, or perhaps because of it, is one of the most sought-after doctors in Brahmpur. His devotion to his profession is exemplary. And he exacts obedience to his decrees from even the most rebellious of his patients.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Pran, and submitted to the reading. ‘So, when do I expect you next?’

  ‘In a day. Remember, you’re not to move out of the house and, preferably, not out of bed.’

  ‘Please, Sir, may I go to the bathroom?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And may I accept visitors?’

  ‘Yes.’

  At Imtiaz’s next visit, he looked grave. He had examined the ECG reading, and told Pran, without beating about the bush:

  ‘Well, I was right, this time it was not asthma alone, but heart. You have what we like to call “severe right ventricular strain”. I am recommending three weeks of complete rest, and I’m going to put you in hospital for a little while. Don’t get alarmed. But lectures are out. And committee work and so on.’

  ‘But the baby—’

  ‘Oh, the baby? Are there problems there?’

  ‘Do you mean the baby will be born when I’m in the hospital myself?’

  ‘I suppose that’s up to the baby. As far as I am concerned, you are to rest for three weeks, starting now. The baby is none of my concern,’ said Imtiaz heartlessly. Then he added: ‘You’ve done what you needed to in the creation of the baby. The rest is up to Savita. If you insist on endangering yourself further, it won’t be good for her—or for the baby either.’

  Pran accepted the justice of this argument. He closed his eyes, but the moment he did so a wave of nameless anxieties washed over him.

  He quickly opened his eyes again, and said: ‘Imtiaz, please tell me what this thing is—this ventricular strain you mentioned. Don’t tell me I don’t need to know. Have I had a heart attack or something?’ He recalled Firoz’s remark: ‘The hear
t and the lungs are two quite different things, young man, two quite different things,’ and, despite himself, began to smile.

  Imtiaz looked at him with the same grave expression that seemed so atypical of him, and said: ‘Well, I can see that the idea of a heart attack amuses you. It’s good you’ve never had one, and—well—you aren’t likely to, exactly. But since you’ve asked, let me explain things to you as clearly as I can.’ He paused, thought a little about how to put it, then continued: ‘There’s an intimate connection between the heart and the lungs; they share the same cavity, and the right side of the heart supplies stale blood to the lungs for it to freshen, to oxygenate, as we say. So when the lungs don’t do their job properly—for instance because of not getting enough air when the air-tubes to the lungs seize up asthmatically—the heart is affected. It tries to supply more blood to the lungs to make up for the bad oxygen exchange, and this causes its own supplying chamber to fill up with blood, to become congested and distended. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes. You explain things very well,’ Pran said sadly.

  ‘Now because of this congestion and distension, the heart loses its efficiency as a pump, and that is what we like to call “congestive cardiac failure”. It’s got nothing to do with what laymen understand by the term “heart failure”. To them that means a heart attack. Well, as I said, you are not in danger of that.’

  ‘Then why must I stay in bed for three weeks? It seems a terribly long time. What will happen to my work?’

  ‘Well, you can do a bit of light work in bed,’ said Imtiaz. ‘And later, you can go for walks. But cricket is out for a while.’

  ‘Out?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. Now as for medicine. Here are two sets of white tablets. You are to take these three times a day, and these once a day for the first week. Then I’ll probably cut down a bit on the digoxin, depending on your pulse rate. But you’ll keep on with the aminophylline for a few months. If necessary I might have to give you an injection of penicillin.’